The Q: What Does Fashion Do For You? (And Responses from Last Week)

Sunday, June 26, 2011

This week, I have been talking a lot about feminism and fashion and the way that personal meets political through your self-expression. Now it's your turn to speak:

What does fashion do for you? What messages do you share with the world (consciously or unconsciously) when you put on clothes/makeup/accessories? Does your personal interact with the political through those choices?

As with last week's question, your answers will be posted here at the end of the week!

And, without further ado, here are your answers to last week's question: What/who made you think about your identity?

Choosing to go to college (believe it or not). It was super weird having to think about what I wanted out of my life when I was 17 and knowledgeable about very little. - Jamie F.

Looking back, I think the thing that caused me to think about my identity the most is criticism. When I was younger, I paid attention to criticism from my parents to learn how to self-regulate. As I grew older, a lot of the criticism was from myself. Little bits and pieces of comments from other people and my elaborations in my head of what they meant and what I should do about them. These days I draw less upon what others say. My method now is to take my idealistic view of who I want to be, and how I should act, and apply it to the way that I am currently. I will always strive to be better, so who I want to be will never match up with who I am, therefore the feeling I've always gotten when I've thought about my identity is negative. When I take action to become better, I feel positive about my identity. Often I am reliant upon friends and family to provide positive commentary on my identity and my abilities because of this. - Heather H.

For me, I would say my best friend from middle school. She was a free spirited child, and the one who was always first to experience life through music, arts, and drugs. I believe the middle school is where a very critical part of self-growth occurs, and especially for me, she made me think of my identity for good. She is still someone who I stay in touch with, and will always be the one whose footsteps I admired. - Danielle K.

Becoming friends with trans-identified people was the first time I ever consciously thought about the fact that I represented strongly with the gendered body I was born with, and realized that being a cis-gendered female was indeed an identity, not a characteristic. - Genna W.

My friend Alberto. He's a rapper as well and I thought he was gay for a very long time. then I realized that he was just really comfortable with his swag and could affect people. that made me realize tat just bein yourself got you the most self respect. - Paris D.


Thanks a ton to everyone who responded to this question! You're all awesome.